FILM REVIEW; A Lifetime Battle for the Right to Die

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Published: December 17, 2004

As the camera restlessly circles the sky and the ocean, taking in the radiance of northern Spain, ''The Sea Inside,'' the story of a quadriplegic activist fighting for the right to die, struggles to transcend the disease-of-the-week genre to which it belongs. Yet there is no escaping the fact that the true story of Ram?ampedro, a former ship's mechanic seeking a final exit after three decades of agonizing immobility, is defined by its theme.

To its credit, the movie avoids becoming a formulaic dialogue that pits religious and secular cheerleaders against one another in predigested arguments. Even so, the characters (some of them composites) often feel like schematic formulations intended to balance the story. And the deepest philosophical questions posed by euthanasia are only glancingly addressed, most often in Ram? bitterly ironic remarks. The film fails to convey the claustrophobic terror experienced by a man who called his book ''Letters From Hell.''

Sensitively portrayed by the great Spanish actor Javier Bardem, Ram?egards his life in the wake of a crippling accident in his mid-20's as a cruel, cosmic joke. In his imagination, he is still as he was before: a Zorba-like force of nature who once sailed the world. Now the only thing sustaining his spirit is his acute mind, which torments him with dreams of a physical life that is just a memory.

In the film's most remarkable sequence, Ram?bedridden in his family's house in Galicia overlooking the sea, suddenly stirs, then lurches unsteadily to his feet. For a second, you wonder if his condition all these years has been an elaborate hoax, or if a miracle has occurred. As he steals out of the house and flies to the beach to join his beautiful lawyer Julia (Bel?Rueda), the Puccini aria ''Nessun dorma,'' which he is playing on a phonograph, swells over the soundtrack, and they fall into a rapturous embrace. Then Ram?naps to attention. It's only a fantasy that the filmmaker Alejandro Amen?r has milked for its last drop of heartbreaking impossibility.

Because Julia, who is helping Ram?repare his latest court case challenging the laws against euthanasia, is also seriously ill, he believes that she will be especially sympathetic to his cause. When, later in the film, she falls downstairs and calls out for help to a man who obviously can't come to her rescue, the situation feels like an arm-twisting emotional ploy.

Mr. Amen?r, the gifted 32-year-old director of ''The Others'' and ''Open Your Eyes'' (later remade as ''Vanilla Sky''), is clearly fixated on the shadowy area between life, death and the spirit world. This time he forsakes science fiction and ghost stories to put his spin on a famous case history.

On Jan. 12, 1998, the 55-year-old Sampedro ended his life by drinking cyanide in an elaborately planned ritual that was videotaped and shown on Spanish television. His assisted suicide involved 10 collaborators, in addition to a cameraman. Each participant in the step-by-step process contributed to the ritual without having enough knowledge of the process to be legally indicted for murder. After his death, hundreds of supporters of his cause wrote letters, confessing to having aided and abetted him.

''The Sea Inside'' presents a teasing paradox. Unambiguously pro-euthanasia on one hand, it shows how Ram?bedridden and unable to move, infused many of those around him with a charged sense of life's possibility. Mr. Bardem, acting above the neck (except in brief flashbacks and fantasies), creates a complicated male character, volatile and witty, with a poet's soul. An excellent makeup job has given the 35-year-old actor the thinning, grayish hair and doughy pallor of a physically inactive man 20 years his senior.

We meet the members of Ram? religious farming family, who slave to keep him alive but refuse to help him in his battle to die with dignity. Surrounding him are his father, Joaqu?(Joan Dalmau); his angry brother, Jos?Celso Bugallo), who vehemently opposes any suicidal assistance; Ram? attentive sister-in-law, Manuela (Mabel Rivera); and his young nephew, Javi (Tamar Novas), who regards his uncle as a father figure. Frequent visitors include Gen?Clara Seguara), a right-to-die activist, and her boyfriend, Marc (Francesc Garrido).

Two women enter his life. The first, Julia, embraces his cause, becomes his soul mate, and helps him produce a book of poems. The second, Rosa (Lola Due?, is a beleaguered single mother with two children, who visits Ram?fter seeing him on television and falls in love. When she tries to convince him that his life is worth living, he caustically suggests that she is really seeking some meaning to her own life. Anyone who really loves him, he insists, will help him die. Will she or won't she?

In the end, suspenseful narrative devices that worked so effectively in a gothic fantasy like ''The Others'' feel contrived when applied to what's supposed to be a true story of life, death and the living hell from which Ram?inally escapes.

''The Sea Inside'' is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). The issue addressed could make children uncomfortable.

Directed by Alejandro Amen?r; written (in Spanish, with English subtitles) by Mr. Amen?r and Mateo Gil; director of photography, Javier Aguirresarobe; music by Mr. Amen?r and Carlos N?; production designer, Benjam?Fern?ez; produced by Fernando Bovaira and Mr. Amen?r; released by Fine Line Features. Running time: 125 minutes. This film is rated PG-13.